Wisconsin's status as a presidential battleground in question

The presidential ad wars have begun, and they’re being waged almost entirely in nine key states.

Wisconsin isn’t one of them, which raises some obvious questions.

Is this state, which has voted Democratic for president seven times in a row, a true presidential battleground?

Or is it not really in play?

Will Democrats decide it’s safe enough they don’t need to pull out the stops to win here?

Will Republicans decide their best efforts are better spent elsewhere?

“Ultimately, if you’re advertising, you’re serious. If (Wisconsin) is truly competitive or had a chance to be competitive we would be seeing advertising,” says Ken Goldstein, a political scientist with the University of San Francisco, and formerly with the University of Wisconsin.

Right now, the “people who invest money in elections” have made the judgment Wisconsin is not a top-tier battleground, says Goldstein, an expert in campaign advertising. “What the lack of ad buys tells us is that at best it’s number 11 or number 12” on the battleground list, he says.

It’s still early, and campaign strategies change. The key indicator to watch will be whether Donald Trump makes a serious and sustained advertising effort here, because it’s up to Republicans to expand the map and try to put Wisconsin in play.

But Trump has yet to air any battleground-state ads, so we don’t really know what his electoral strategy is.

Three other groups have launched presidential ad campaigns, however, and they are our best early guides to the battleground map.

On the Democratic side, Hillary Clinton and a pro-Clinton PAC, Priorities USA, are both on the air.

And on the GOP side, the National Rifle Association is airing pro-Trump, anti-Clinton ads.

Where are they advertising?

Six states are seeing ads from all three groups: Florida, Ohio, Colorado, Virginia, Pennsylvania and Nevada.

Three more are seeing ads from the Clinton campaign and Priorities USA: Iowa, New Hampshire and North Carolina.

As far as the air wars go, these nine states are the premier presidential battlegrounds at the outset of the general election campaign.

The NRA has also advertised in Maine, and Clinton has advertised in Nebraska. (Both states award electoral votes by congressional district, and both have a single district that is more competitive than the state as a whole).

Reince Priebus, the Wisconsin attorney who chairs the Republican National Committee, asserts that his home state is an unquestioned battleground. He says the GOP has 50 paid staff in the state, proof of its commitment.

“Our money is where our mouth is,” says Priebus. “I don’t think the RNC has ever been in Wisconsin this early, with this many people, in (its) history.”

Those efforts, which are also aimed at contests for U.S. Senate and other offices, are significant.

But in the end, targeted advertising and candidate travel will be the true “tell” of whether his side thinks it can win at the presidential level here, and whether the state is being “hotly” contested.

Not all Republicans are convinced that will happen.

“I just don’t see the chance of (Trump) being able to put Wisconsin in play,” says GOP congressman Reid Ribble, who opposes Trump‘s nomination and refuses to support him in the general election.

Ribble points to several factors: statewide polling that has consistently shown Clinton ahead; Trump’s weakness in the base GOP counties of southeast Wisconsin, where he did poorly in the state’s April primary; and continued resistance to Trump on conservative talk radio in the state.

“They’re going to have to direct resources to another state where they think they can win it. Every campaign has to make those decisions,” Ribble says.

“It’s tough to win Wisconsin in a presidential year — we’ll cede that point,” says Duffy. And “if you have depressed (GOP) turnout in southeast Wisconsin, I don’t think you will win.”

But Duffy says, “if you get a traditional GOP presidential-year turnout in southeast Wisconsin, we win, because the north is changing. Trump will do very well (there).”

Because she leads here, Clinton probably doesn’t need to advertise in Wisconsin until Republicans do. Gillian Drummond, a campaign spokesperson for Clinton in the state, said, "Hillary Clinton is committed to running hard in Wisconsin,” both for her own race and to help other Democrats on the ballot.

Justin Barasky, a spokesman for the pro-Clinton Priorities USA, says his group is “constantly assessing the map and the dynamics of the race,” and will shift its targeting as needed.

Goldstein says a state’s battleground status is not just a matter of how close it is in the polling, but how competitive it is compared to other states – where it ranks in the hierarchy of battlegrounds.

In 2004, Wisconsin was a top five target for presidential ads.

In the run-up to the 2008 election, it ranked seventh in ad spending.

In 2012, it ranked ninth in the number of presidential ads aired.

“It has been leapfrogged by other states,” says Goldstein.

“Wisconsin is shaping up to be more like the Wisconsin of 2012 and 2008 than it was in 2000 or 2004,” says Joe Zepecki, a Democratic consultant who worked on the Obama campaign in Wisconsin four years ago. “We simplify when we say ‘battleground.’ There are tiers of battlegrounds.”

Wisconsin was the closest state in the country in 2004. It was more competitive in 2004 than Colorado, Virginia, North Carolina and Pennsylvania – all states that have emerged since then as “hotter” battlegrounds.

In 2012, 10 other states were closer than Wisconsin.

Obama’s relative popularity here made Wisconsin less competitive in 2008 and 2012. And unless it’s remedied, Trump’s weakness here could have the same effect in 2016.

At this point, Pennsylvania appears to be settling into the role Wisconsin occupied in the Bush-Kerry election of 12 years ago – a blue-leaning state where Republicans sense real opportunity to go all out and win.

Political scientist Larry Sabato of the University of Virginia ranks 11 other states as more competitive than Wisconsin in his “Crystal Ball” Electoral College ratings. The website “FiveThirtyEight” lists Wisconsin among 12 states to watch, but rates it as less competitive than 10 of those states.

Wisconsin will surely see presidential ads and presidential campaign visits between now and November. But how big a role it actually plays is very much in question.

The Wisconsin Voter is a blog about elections, political trends and public opinion in Wisconsin and the Upper Midwest. It is less about politicians than the people who elect them. It’s aimed at political junkies and general readers alike. Its subjects include:

The role this state and region play as electoral battlegrounds.

Voting patterns and trends at the local, state and regional level.

What makes voters here different from voters in other places.

Public opinion and the election climate.

Craig Gilbert is the Journal Sentinel's Washington, D.C. Bureau Chief and national political reporter.

Charting how each of Wisconsin’s 72 counties has trended politically compared to the U.S. as a whole over 60 years of presidential voting. Use the pull down menu to see charts for individual counties. Click here for an explanation of how the charts were done and how to read them.